TCC Book Two: The Hunt
by gwenjm
Summary: The Cleric runs toward danger in a hunt, but finds she is reluctant to confront other struggles as a vision of the future is revealed. Set after ThunderCats NS episode 26 "What Lies Above" [spoilers].
1. Chapter 1: Memories

**The Cheetara Chronicles**

**Book 2: The Hunt**

**Author's note: **

This is another backdrop character piece. I got the idea for this from "Survival of the Fittest." I wondered what might have happened if Cheetara had gone out on her own and actually done a hunt. Here's one take. The last section leads into the next story I'm working on.

**Warnings:** this story has National Geographic style violence. Also, from reading some of the fan discussions of the NS, it just seems like there is a lot of pain out there regarding some parts of the show. So, just be aware that this story talks about some of Cheetara's character relevant angst as she tries to work through some difficulties and get back to her mission.

Also, some of the words are made up, and some of the fruits and flora are geographically jumbled (creative fantasy license!) Updated 4-26-2013.

Thanks for reading.

**Chapter 1: Memories**

Cheetara lay low in the tall grass with her hind claws anchored in the dirt. She tucked her right knee against her breast and stretched her left leg out behind her. The young cleric listened to the wind and breathed as a light gust rustled the leaves of the beech trees and emerald brush beside her.

She stank of the civet fruit paste that she rubbed on her fur to mask her scent. The fruit's musty dung odor made her cough and frown. _Ummph, the downside of hunting_, she thought. The rotten smell reminded her that her fur had lost any hint of the essence of flowery oils her mother once imported from realms beyond the Sand Sea. The dung smell made her miss bathing in spring water her handmaidens perfumed with crushed citron and sandalwood. After her baths, the women used to pamper her shamelessly. They would coat her fur in clays made of earth from the ruins near the Geyser of Life in the southern realms. Then, they would rinse her and massage her fur with oils from Tuskanian orchids and other blossoms her father brought to her from his trade missions. When she was a small cub, Cheetara wriggled away from her handmaidens, but as she grew older, she would purr her appreciation for them.

The acrid air flowed past her; Cheetara refocused her gaze miles into the forest and pushed away memories of the comforts she had run from years ago.

She had run away from her people to stop a fire. She had known it was coming. As a cub, she had dreamed it. The dream showed a vision of herself, a trained cleric, disciplined, and strong, with devoted friends. The vision foretold that, as a cleric, she would stop a fire from destroying her homeland in the east. To prepare herself, she had sought out the noble few she hoped would help train her. But the vision had been wrong; the fire had been in Thundera. She trained for years as a cleric, but she had been powerless to stop it. Thundera had burned, surrendered, and fallen.

Now, these thoughts raised painful questions about the fate of the House she left behind. She did not know if her remaining family and the people on their lands survived The Fall, or, if the lizards had decimated her people as savagely as they devastated the cats of Thundera. She yearned to ask Lion-O to survey the lands of the east with the Sword of Omens. But she could not ask him; she would risk disclosing her secret, and things between them were already difficult. And their fragile mission could certainly not withstand further distractions. So, as far as Cheetara was concerned, she had no House and she belonged to no other clan. She was a ThunderCat now. That was the only thing anyone needed to know about her.

Cheetara looked behind herself and tensed her neck and shoulders. The smoky metallic ruins of the birds' sky city rested on scorched earth just beyond the edge of the forest. The Crash would have destroyed Avista City if General Panthro had not activated the city's emergency power; that final explosion from the engines had given just enough power to glide the enormous city to the ground. His quick thinking saved many lives. As it stood, the birds suffered few casualties. In the weeks following The Crash, the Elephants, Dogs, Fishmen, and Berbil robot bears, who had united behind King Lion-O during the siege of Avista, all stayed on to treat the injured and repair the city. Three weeks of sole-blistering work had sapped their energy, but a spirit of camaraderie rallied them onward. Their fellowship let them avoid the uneasy question of how Avista could return to the sky; Mumm-Ra had stolen the Technology Stone, the ancient force that powered the city's flight. And no one dared to speak of the role the ThunderCats themselves played in creating the disaster in the first place.

Instead, the immediate needs of water, food and shelter occupied the workers and the survivors.

"I'll lead the construction efforts," Tygra insisted.

"_Sword of Omens_. . ._Give me Sight Beyond Sight_. . ." King Lion-O had mastered the call to the Sword, and he used it to find a nearby well to supply the makeshift camp with water.

With shelter and water in hand, it fell to Cheetara to find the food. Technology had always provided for the Avistans' every need, she assumed, so she volunteered to help the birds learn to gather food for themselves and the other animals.

"I'll figure out a way to get food to everyone that won't offend anyone," she had promised Lion-O. She enlisted the Avistan chicks in the effort, and together with the kittens, WilyKit and WilyKat, she collected plenty of earthworms, fruits and nuts for the Fishmen, Elephants and Birds. The Berbils only needed to recharge with the recycled candyfruit sugar they brought with them. General Panthro processed the fruit with energy from the ailing Thundertank; the tank had been all but destroyed in their bout with a soul sever and his necromechs.

"With all the damage, that blasted tank isn't good for much else," Panthro had grumbled.

That left the cats and the dogs, who needed to eat meat. Even if they had any money left for trade, on foot, the nearest trading towns were likely weeks away in any direction. And they could not wait for the tank to be repaired to carry them to civilization. The cats and dogs had gone as far as they could with fruits, nuts and leaves. Their tongues were sore, their moods irritable, and fatigue slowed their work. The increasing frequency of lonely, foul-smelling trips to the forest had forced the point, and even the elephants agreed. The cats and dogs would have to have some meat, and Cheetara planned to conduct a hunt by herself.

_Don't worry, I am fully capable of hunting on my own_, she had reassured Lion-O. Though she would never admit it to the other cats, Cheetara loved hunting alone. She had tried bringing WilyKit and WilyKat with her to train them, but they did not enjoy the hunt the way she did. The kittens tended to sympathize with the prey until it was fully cooked.

Hunting alone allowed her to quiet her mind and visualize the target as her mother had taught her to do when she was a cub. While alone, Cheetara didn't have to explain why she never used her gift of speed, or her cleric's staff, in a hunt. She thought it was a point of honor to at least give her prey a chance to escape from her. Speed or not, she knew, she was a formidable opponent. And while alone, she could meditate to hallow the sacrifice she required of her prey. _Perhaps I ought to meditate now_, the thought came to her and went away. She decided get the hunting over and done with first.

She exhaled emphatically, and not seeing prey in any direction, she relaxed her ready position and stayed hidden. Cheetara felt that a quarter rotation of Third Earth had passed before she finally spied something promising. She scanned a pasture to the west beyond the forest. _There_. Miles away in the clearing she saw a herd of tan-colored maka gazelles. They galloped together in a loosely formed pack heading in the direction of a small lake that lay to the northwest. Cheetara launched herself forward dodging the beech trees and evergreen shrubs that stood between her and the pack. Exhilaration carried her; she smiled feeling the lift beneath her feet, almost flying, silent so that her prey would not hear her approaching. She had miles of distance to cover, and this use of speed was fair, she supposed. She stopped short of the clearing, hid behind a bush of white rockrose flowers, and watched.

_So beautiful, _Cheetara marveled_._ The maka were elegant beasts, four-legged with tri-clawed hoofs, standing close to nine feet tall at their maturity. They had broad shoulders that spread out like desert plains, and humped backs that jutted upwards like rock formations hewn from sandstone. In the pale orange afternoon sun, the beasts' tan fur scintillated with reddish-gold flashes, and the bronze-colored antlers scattered the sun's rays to confuse and disable an unwary hunter. Three maka slowed to graze in the moist grass: a young female almost eight feet tall; a male at nine feet, likely her mate; and an older seven foot female that kept a respectful distance, possibly the mother to the younger female. Their meat would feed all the cats, and at least half the dogs for three days or more.

Cheetara decided to use her standard plan of attack for triads. She would first attack the older female, then separate and kill the couple.


	2. Chapter 2: The Hunt

Cheetara put herself down on all four paws and crawled through the grass toward the herd. She took deep breaths to quell the electric tingling in her lips, shoulders and back, and the thump thumping in her chest that always accompanied the beginning of her hunts.

_Deep_ _breaths_, she cursed, trying to dampen her excitement. Slowly, slowly she integrated herself in with the animals, softening her gaze, smoothing out her movements. She used her golden fur and dark brown spots as a mask to blend in with the group. A low rumble resounded in her chest as she drew closer to the older female maka gazelle. The animals looked up sharply as Cheetara announced her presence. The older female started first, but it was too late. Cheetara was upon her.

"Come here girl!" Cheetara shouted.

Cheetara dug her front claws into the hind quarters of the older female, and turned her head to shield her eyes against the flashes from the maka gazelle's fur. Firmly anchored, she sank her teeth hard into the maka's left hind leg, and twisted her jaws to the side to shatter the bone, disabling it. The animal staggered away from the cheetah, and fell with a thud, coloring the grass around her with scarlet ribbons. As the cheetah prowled beside her, smelling of slaughter, the animal swung her head frenetically and ripped the air with her short, straight antlers two, five, seven times, narrowly catching Cheetara's shoulder. Cheetara winced and leapt up landing squarely on top of the maka, pinning the animal on its side.

Barring her fangs, Cheetara sliced the maka's throat and smashed the animal against the ground, draining the energy from it. Feeling a warm presence looming behind her, the cheetah ducked and looked to her left. Indeed, the younger female had come to protect the elder. The younger female maka thrust its antlers at the cheetah's head and then slammed its body into the slender cat. Cheetara landed hard onto her right shoulder and scrambled to regain her footing. The large beast charged the cheetah and forced her to move a distance away to avoid being trampled. Cheetara grasped her right shoulder and cried out in pain.

"You want to play rough, huh?" Cheetara snarled.

Rising behind the younger female maka, Cheetara caught sight of the male. He had witnessed the melee and was now charging at the cat. Cheetara's mouth went dry and her fur bristled as she looked back and forth, and to her right. The older female maka dragged itself toward Cheetara to her right, attempting to regain its footing, streaming crimson and foamy-gray saliva down its fur from the cat's attack. _Is she going to get back up?_ Cheetara wondered.

The cheetah whipped her head back to center. The younger female maka had stopped charging and was advancing deliberately at Cheetara, thrusting her antlers ahead of her, blinding the cat with flashes from her coat. The cheetah could feel a deep chill under her fur as the male called out wildly, bellowing at her, stomping and rocking the ground beneath them. The nine-foot beast closed in on her, casting a black shadow on top of her. Cheetara's breast rose and fell and rose and fell and she stumbled backward onto the ground, holding her injured shoulder, eyeing both beasts in front of her, aware of the injured maka staggering toward her slightly behind her on her right side, cutting off the path for her escape.

Cheetara grimaced and stretched her arms apart, baring the white fur of her belly, drawing the maka in toward her. The male licked his fangs and rained saliva from his lips; his breath blew a fowl mist into the air. He roared and slowed his charging, moving closer in toward the cat. Cheetara narrowed her gaze and roared a warning.

The male maka halted his advance and stood in place to roar and snap at the cat. The cheetah snorted out a quick breath to gird her courage. _Precision_, she reminded herself; she had to act carefully to take this chance to attack him. She sprang up and used the younger female's body to cloak herself as she rushed at the male. Reaching around its front legs, Cheetara plunged her claws into its belly, and ripped away the white fur and pink flesh beneath. The cheetah swung her body close to his tail to avoid his great curved antlers that slashed at her shoulder and flank. The maka reared up stretching his body skyward. Before he could slam himself down to crush her, Cheetara pushed her bruised shoulder into the skin surrounding the maka's raw entrails. He roared and fell backward writhing. Cheetara pounced and sank her fangs into his throat crushing his larynx. As he lay asphyxiating, the cheetah looked around quickly to identify the position of the younger maka. She spied the animal tugging at the older female maka, attempting to drag the animal deeper into the tall grasses. Cheetara slashed the neck of the male and drew out his blood. She hated the taste - a combination of iron mixed with soil and raw maka fat- but it was the surest way to ease his suffering. When she saw the brightness from his golden eyes darken for the last time, she worked quickly to remove his entrails so that the meat would not spoil.

Cheetara turned to face the younger female and charged toward the animal. The younger maka swung around and roared. Spitting saliva and entrails from her mouth, Cheetara bared her teeth at the younger maka. The cheetah stopped her charge and moved slowly behind the mother-daughter pair; the older female maka lay dying. _I've got to end this quick or the meat from that beast is going to spoil_, Cheetara thought.

The cheetah seized the hind quarters of the younger maka from behind, burying her claws in deeply. She catapulted herself up and bounced awkwardly, sloppily, onto the back of the younger maka, sliding along the gazelle's side, Cheetara hung on and tried to pull herself forward to grab the animal's throat. The younger maka swung her head backwards and managed to snap a bit of fur on the cheetah's arm between her teeth. Cheetara howled with fright and dug her claws into the maka's side. The great beast bucked, shook her body sideways and tossed Cheetara down onto the ground. _The_ _gods_, Cheetara swore to herself.

The maka bore her golden stare into Cheetara, and caught the unyielding glare from the cat. The beast turned away, flashing her short fluffy tail. The young female maka had decided to run. Cheetara hastened to her feet and chased the great beast. Their chase frightened and stirred the herd. The herd of gazelles began to stampede kicking up earth, and rocks, and dust and grass. Cheetara ran, following the cardinal colored trail behind the injured gazelle. The maka used her powerful forward legs to pull away, and to force the cheetah to chase her through the herd. Cheetara cursed, seeing that the maka might outrun her. She stopped and scanned the clearing quickly to locate a large stone. Cheetara took hold of a flat, palm-sized rock and aimed for the maka's head. She hurled the rock in an arc and caught the animal's head squarely above the eye.

Stunned, the animal stumbled backward and slowed allowing Cheetara to catch up to her. Panting and roaring, the cheetah dodged through the pack of gazelles and grabbed the injured left hind quarter of the young female maka, ripping the flesh there and toppling the animal onto its side. Cheetara bounded on top of the animal and slashed at its belly wounding it fatally. The animal stared into the face of the cheetah and watched as the cat moved onto her neck. Cheetara met the animal's stare with honesty in her eyes and swiftly delivered the final blow. She removed the entrails quickly, and ran back to prepare the body of the older female who died during Cheetara's struggle with the younger. Cheetara wiped her claws and palms on the clean grass next to the older gazelle, then laid out a leather mat from the pouch she carried on her back. She stripped the fur, then the skin from the animal's neck to its hind quarters, and dislodged the hind, then the front legs, and laid the meat onto the mat.

The evening sun sank into a rusty sphere as Cheetara prepared the meat from the male, then the younger female for transport. She wrapped as much as she could liberate from the bones of the animals, and left the rest for the hyenas and buzzards that would soon come circling. Before leaving, Cheetara stood silently and exhaled. _We thank the gods of the earth and the animals. We shall endeavor to live lives worthy of their sacrifice_, she thought. The herd was moving off, and in her meditation, she did not see a smaller, rose-shaded female, a bit taller than seven feet, who eyed Cheetara before trudging away toward the rest of herd. The adrenaline fading, Cheetara became aware of the nipped fur on her arm, and the ache in her right shoulder. She stopped to examine herself. _Only_ _bruises_, she thought, _but_ _I'm_ _getting_ _careless_.

Knowing she had miles to travel, she used rope from her pack to tie the meat onto her back. She readjusted the leather leg braces she wore from ankle to thigh, and prepared to accelerate toward the camp. She stopped short, and eyed the rockrose bush that had hidden her from the herd. She broke off several of the large white flowers and used them to rub the civet juice from her face. Inhaling deeply, she remembered the dark amber notes of the fragrance from her childhood. When she had grown a bit older, her mother allowed her to add the rockrose fragrance to her bath. Her mother only let her use it sparingly and told her that traditionally, the fragrance was reserved for noblewomen at times of mating. At the time, Cheetara did not really know what her mother meant. She had simply liked the sticky, sweet, wooden fragrance for its own sake. She now found it the perfect antidote to counteract the dung smell she used to mask her scent for the hunt. Cheetara stored a few rockrose petals with the meat, packed a few for her later use, and accelerated toward the cats' camp.


	3. Chapter 3: Reverie

The dusty steel ruins of Avista rose to greet her and shone in the moonlight. Cheetara slowed her running when she glimpsed the broken city at the edge of the forest, and she scanned for any of the ThunderCats she could find. Tygra was walking to and fro, tearing through the dusty yellow grasses of the campsite and looking in the direction of the forest. Cheetara saw the striped prince and called to him.

"Tygra! Tygra!"

The large tiger turned his head toward her voice and sprinted across the campsite to meet her.

"There's the woman I love! What on earth took you so long?" he scolded. "I was worried!"

"Come help me with the meat. I need to get it onto a fire as soon as I can." Cheetara unloaded the backpack onto the ground to relieve her sore shoulder, and motioned for Tygra to pick up the pack.

Tygra was always in his armor. Still, she appreciated his thick, muscular arms and solid, broad shoulders. She imagined the shape of his finely-sculpted breast and abdomen beneath the green metal plates, tapering into his long narrow waist and firm hips. He used his powerful thighs to hoist the pack onto his back. The two walked toward the camp where Tygra had already started a large fire and assembled a spit for roasting.

"You started a huge fire," Cheetara said, smiling. "How did you know . . . "

"I never had any doubt." Tygra grinned. "The only time you ever come back with nothing is when you go out hunting with me."

"And why d'you think I leave you at home?" Cheetara screwed her eyes to the late evening sky and jabbed him in the arm with her elbow. She relaxed her shoulders, grabbed his arm, leaned into him and sniffed him, smelling the smoke from the fire on his fur. As they walked closer to the fire, she saw the reddish plumes in Tygra's light brown eyes, bringing out their golden, orange, and chocolate tones.

"You're cute when you go hunting," he teased her and brushed his nose against her face. "What is that smell on your cheeks? It's nice . . . ."

Cheetara's toe caught on a small rock she hadn't noticed and she stumbled a few steps forward before righting herself.

"Just help me unload the meat," she said. Cheetara grabbed her shoulder, now throbbing anew after the stumble. Looking at herself, covered in blood, entrails and spit, she felt fatigue settle over her. She was not really in the mood for flirting. Not now, at least.

WilyKat called out to her, excited to see the haul from her hunt. "I should've gone with you," he bragged. "I could've tracked for you, you know."

"Of course." Cheetara grinned. "Next time."

"Good job!" Lion-O approached and stood close to her; his pet Snarf trailed close behind him. Lion-O looked over Tygra's shoulder and admired the gazelle meat. "This will feed us for days and it's enough for the dogs, too," he said.

"It is an honor to provide sustenance for our guests," Cheetara said. She stiffened and managed a stilted nod to the King.

"Taught her everything she knows." Tygra quipped.

"Good thing she unlearned it." Lion-O smirked.

"Enough you two. You're _both_ ugly, all right?" Panthro joined the younger cats, knowing that the easy jostling between the royal brothers could turn into quarreling at any time. It was far too late in the evening for silly war games. "Cheetara, are you still up for keeping watch with me tonight?" he asked.

"Sure," she grimaced.

"Fine. Then I'll help you roast the meat. Lion-O, Tygra, go find something else to do." Only Panthro could order the King and the Prince so blithely and get away with it. Cheetara was grateful for the break from the brothers' antics. She sat down next to Panthro and sighed.

"Sleep," he said quietly when the others had gone. "I'll take first. You can take second."

"Thanks," she said. General Panthro always understood. Cheetara curled up against Panthro and rolled onto her side to offload the pressure on her bruised shoulder. Tomorrow would be a good day. They would have plenty to eat. She could bathe in the morning. But for now, she could rest. Through half-parted eyelids, Cheetara looked at the hypnotic flecks and sparks from the flame that cured the meat. She imagined wading in the northwest lake with her rockwood at dawn, rubbing its petals against her fur in the cool water. She would freshen and clean herself to serve the meat to Lion-O, the other cats, and the dogs, but she would remember the smells of dung, musk, and iron as she sank her own teeth into the hard-earned flesh. She inhaled, licked her lips, and sighed before falling off to sleep.

**-o-**

Cheetara then walked in the mist of a sapphire blue sky. White clouds, like plush cushions, padded her steps and comforted her feet. She looked down and touched the pleats of the silken white gown that hugged her body. Golden spiral bracelets encircled her arms, and she admired the emblems of royalty and wealth.

Her jeweled arm reached out to him and welcomed him to come dance with her in the evening light. Now that there was no reason to keep her distance, she could freely admit how deeply she loved him. That love had hurt her so much over the years; it seared the air inside her chest like orange coals under a covered clay oven; every tournament or festival proved his strength and sensuality, and not a poet in Thundera could match him for lyric or wit, and he knew it; but behind his displays of intensity and passion lay a kindness - and with it, a grounded, disciplined resolve; and all these facets of him were like rakes stirring embers into fire.

Her sense of honor and her loyalty to the crown secured her strict silence, and she sealed her feelings for him behind walls of self-denial, restraint, acceptance and serenity. She performed this service with unfailing humility. But when she realized she had to confess the truth to him, she pulled him into her arms and tasted justice on his lips. It felt euphoric. That kiss, long-awaited, had felt like a vindication of her commitment to duty. And the feeling of new love made her eager, breezy, powerful, careless, silly, tripping over her own feet at times. But it had also opened her to a kind of pain; the guilt of self-indulgence, and at times, a sense of loss and sadness. Cheetara had been unsure if she should be happy, or how she should proceed. Being near him, though, touching his face, sharing a simple dance with him was at once thrilling, and also blissful; Cheetara needed this respite now, if only for a moment.

The three moons of Third Earth illuminated his face; his orange and black stripes glinted in the evening light. Tygra appeared in front of her in a white silk tunic with a high upturned collar; he secured the tunic with a navy whip tied tightly around his waist. Tygra's sumptuous brown eyes were warm chocolate baths that lapped around her and soothed her. Cheetara took his hand in hers and he wrapped his arm firmly around her waist. They danced and swayed in each other's arms to the rhythm of a flupe's lilting melody. As they laughed together waltzing on the pearly carpet, Cheetara was startled to see an enormous scarlet hood and a scowling decayed face wrapped in rank white ribbons, hissing in the sky beside them.

"Who is _that_?" Tygra's comely face was bright with curiosity. Cheetara swept the sky with her hand and covered the foul vision with wispy mist.

"That is just Mumm-Ra." Cheetara said. "Ignore him. Lion-O will handle him." They waltzed past the mummy and danced toward four dark figures cloaked in charcoal vapor. She could make out the shapes of a jackal, a vulture, a lizard, and a monkey.

"Who are they?" Tygra inquired.

"I have no idea." Cheetara ran her fingers along Tygra's cheek.

"Are they Ancient Spirits of Evil?" Tygra quizzed her.

"I suppose. I mean. . . I know this must be important. But I heard what Lion-O said to me. Lion-O was clear. So I'm backing off. If he needs me, _he'll_ say so." She raised her lips and looked into Tygra's aqua blue eyes. Cheetara blinked and stepped backward. Behind Tygra she saw the young lion King draw his ancient silver sword. Lion-O swiped at the transformed _Mumm-Ra_ _The_ _Everliving_ who was plated in dark coal-colored armor; a sallow lime-green light radiated from the gauntlet Mumm-Ra carried.

"Lion-O!" Cheetara shouted. Her lungs exploded in her chest as she sped to catch him. The lion and the mummy passed further and further away from her grasp with each step.

"Lion-O! Lion-O! Look!" Cheetara's eyes widened. Mumm-Ra hoisted up his double-edged blade and stabbed the mist beneath Lion-O's feet. Lion-O began to fall to earth.

"Lion-O!" Cheetara's heart raced as she felt the air shift beneath her. She jumped toward Lion-O scrambling to reach him.

"Lion-O! Grab my hand!" Cheetara shouted again, but it was useless. She could not reach him. She shrieked feeling the air scalding her fur as she tumbled from the sky. They were heading for a well on the earth below. In the blackness of the well she saw a gaunt, stern face frowning at her. An old jaguar stretched up from the well and held out a book to her. The jaguar called her name ferociously.

"Cheetara!" She gasped and sat upright. She looked over at the General who stared back at her, one eye hollow, one sharp.

"Um. You okay?" Panthro asked.

". . .Yes." Cheetara rubbed her face and searched for the boy King. Lion-O lay sleeping in a tent on the yellow-green grass near the Thundertank, wrapped in a navy blanket. He seemed still and peaceful. Panthro sighed and pushed on.

"You. . . want to talk about it?"

"About what?" Cheetara's eyes widened, unsure of what Panthro had observed.

"Don't make this difficult," Panthro snapped. "It just looked like you were having a rough time, and. . . you kept calling out for Lion-O. . . . " Cheetara could not stop her cheeks from flushing.

"Look. None of my business. Just thought maybe you had a hard hunt or something."

"No," Cheetara looked solemnly at Panthro. "Just the opposite, I think. More hunting may be exactly what I need." Cheetara had learned to take dreams, or rather, _visions_ after hunting seriously. And this vision was certainly from Jaga himself. She could not be sure what Jaga wanted, but she knew exactly where to look to find out.

"Uh huh." Panthro was done pressing. "You going back to sleep?"

"No, you sleep." Cheetara stood alert and gazed intently at the young lion king. "I'm okay. It's my turn. I've got the watch now."

**oOo**


End file.
